Padres starters rebounding after rough start to season

San Diego Padres starting pitcher Eric Stults pitches in the ninth inning of his two hit complete game victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks during a baseball game in San Diego, Friday, June 14, 2013. The final score was 2-1. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
— AP

San Diego Padres starting pitcher Eric Stults pitches in the ninth inning of his two hit complete game victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks during a baseball game in San Diego, Friday, June 14, 2013. The final score was 2-1. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
/ AP

As cliché as it sounds, the staff totally buys into a connectivity helping pull the rotation out of its early-season funk.

“I think we are feeding off each other,” said Stults, who has a 2.31 ERA in May and June after going 2-2 with a 4.70 ERA over his first four starts. “You want to go out and in a sense one-up them. We don’t stand around here and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to do better than you.’ I think it’s just that competitiveness that if everybody is throwing well, you want to be in the same mix.”

Not that there isn’t real work going into the turnaround.

Volquez, with his long arms and all kinds of moving parts in his delivery, has moved closer to third base on the rubber to create a more direct path toward the plate, which has helped the enigmatic right-hander string together a pair of decent starts of late.

Finally getting his strength back after an intestinal virus cost 19 games on the disabled list, Richard was focusing on pounding the bottom half of the strike zone until removing himself from Friday’s game with shoulder pain, while Cashner is simply continuing to build his arm strength – and hone his overall craft – after offseason surgery on his right thumb set him back a bit in spring training.

Hundley, of course, never doubted for a second that the group – which has had to absorb injuries to Richard and Tyson Ross, who started the season in the rotation – would get it together.

“They’ve been very dogged about their work – all five guys,” Hundley said. “I think it’s a testament to their character. It would be easy to throw in the towel after some tough starts, but they are grinding through everything. They go to work. They get their routines done whether they have thrown eight shutout innings or if they don’t get out of the fourth.”

Then again, Balsley makes it easy to come to work every day. Marquis learned that early last year when he signed with the team in late May.

The Padres were sitting 17 games under .500 at the time. It just didn’t feel like it as he began to comb through scouting reports with Balsley, much like he did day in and day out earlier this year with the rest of the rotation.

“I remember walking in last year against an opponent – not to name names – but a tough lineup, and (Balsley) walked in and … says, ‘I’m so excited about doing the scouting report today,’” Marquis said. “It was just positivity. It wasn’t like, ‘You can’t do this and you can’t throw that.’

“It was execute this and execute that and you’re going to dominate them.”